Best Practice - Leadership & Expectations

Determining what leadership or being a leader means or is defined I believe to be different amongst most people. I define leadership directly and bluntly - getting things done through other people. Now that may sound crass or too straightforward but ultimately when you lead a team of one, a hundred or any amount of people isn't the end result to complete "the task" and reach the goal?

My approach is not as blunt or direct; I have learned over the past 30 years that you need to treat each person as their own. Each with their own needs, wants, approach, vision and ownership ability.

I make sure that I set the same EXPECTATION across the board and manage or lead the team towards the goal in the allotted time frame of completing the task. One of the great voids in business today is that EXPECTATIONS are not clearly defined, set or explained. I see it every day I walk into a business - restaurants, hard line retail, soft line retail, the gas station, grocery store and even at my doctors office. Some tasks have definitive completion dates; others have on-going completion and restart dates. For those on-going tasks, the EXPECTATION root is the same but the end result may change.

As a Leader in the restaurant business, I have found that to be truly successful I need to communicate the same message to every member of the team (proving to be challenging at times as a consultant managing different projects with different clients). To use an example that pertains to all of my clients - Food Cost and how to properly manage. Not only does the EXPECTATION have to be clear but the components of reaching the goal has to be clear as well.

There are many ways to manage food cost - most obviously, proper purchasing practices, proper inventory practices, produce to the business flow and adjust to outside market fluctuations as well as peak and off peak hours.

What about recipe adherence, use of all parts of an ingredient (bones for a stock, meat for soup or a sandwich or an entree). How about scraping out that mustard or mayonnaise container, how often do our team members leave a couple of portions of product behind? Do training aids, including a recipe manual exist? Are the training aids accurate? Most importantly - do your team members understand why these items (and the 100's I did not mention here) are important and what they mean to the success or failure of the business?

Setting the EXPECTATION and then managing to is vital to all business success. How many of us do it? Adam refers to consistency in his post on Best Practices, I couldn't agree more. Consistency in a National Chain is imperative for complete success, one of many EXPECTATIONS the National players set is recipe adherence. This leads to guest loyalty, frequency of visit, increased revenue, meeting financial goals of the company all because the guest's EXPECTATIONS we met.

So I ask:

- What is an EXPECTATION within your company?
- Does everyone within the company share the same EXPECTATION?
- Does everyone understand the EXPECTATION?
- Does everyone work toward the same goals and EXPECTATIONS?

So my best Leadership practice is Setting Expectations and managing them accordingly. I believe that this trait allows my company and my teams to be:

- Successful
- Content
- Clear and Concise
- Focused
- Profitable

Do you agree?